Speakers often invite questions from an audience. Some questions might benefit the majority of the participants while other questions may only have the effect of needlessly sidetracking a speaker. Sometimes good questions may never get asked or answered.
Some presentation formats allow questions to be submitted in text by participants in a presentation or event. Such formats are provided for distance learning, online presentations and teleconferences. However, the questions of other participants are usually never seen by all of the participants. The questions that do get answered are usually picked in some ad hoc fashion by a moderator. Audience members may not have a chance to decide or influence which questions they want to have answered.
Participants often like to respond to and influence discussion topics. Some event hosts welcome or seek input from participants and are better served by such participation. Frequently, participants can determine which questions, topics or discussion items are most important to participants. This determination can include participant votes on the quality or popularity of a discussion item. However, the discussion item receiving the most positive votes for a discussion item may not be representative of the participant group as a whole.
Potential questions can be presented to individual participants in order to elicit their voting input before they are formally asked of the host or guest. Unfortunately, these questions are usually selected at random and may not be presented to the right demographic of participants. Discussion items provided to participants at random can also be ineffective in encouraging further participation by the participants. Furthermore, votes for a discussion item may be unchecked by more reliable participants.